Author: Maanvi Singh / Source: Science News
Beleaguered populations of green sea turtles living in and around Hawaii and American Pacific island territories are increasing in number.
From 2002 to 2015, scuba diving researchers circumnavigated 53 islands, atolls and coral reefs throughout the U.S. Pacific, conducting the first comprehensive survey in that region of the turtles’ ocean habitats. Over the 13 years, the divers counted more than 3,400 sea turtles. The vast majority — 90.1 percent — were green sea turtles; only 8.3 percent were hawksbills and 1.6 percent were unidentified.
The number of green sea turtles spotted around Hawaii increased by an average of 8 percent each year, the team reports April 24 in PLOS ONE. Around American Samoa and the Mariana Islands, the turtles’ numbers increased by an average of 4 percent per year.
“From a conservationist’s point of view, that’s pretty phenomenal,” says study coauthor Rusty Brainard, an oceanographer based in Honolulu who supervises the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral reef ecosystem program.
Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The picture is less rosy for hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata), which the IUCN lists as critically endangered. In the United States, both species are protected by the Endangered Species Act.
“We didn’t spot enough of hawksbills to be able to analyze their population trends over time. It’s a sign that their population is really struggling,” says ecologist Sarah Becker of the Monterey Bay Aquarium…
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